China To Europe: Let’s Include The Moon In The Silk Road

Source: GizaDeathStar.com
Dr. Joseph P. Farrell Ph.D.
May 2, 2017

There may be a new twist to China’s Silk Road economic and infrastructure strategy, one that has truly enormous geopolitical and commercial implications. First, let’s recall where exactly we are in terms of China’s Silk Road project. A few weeks ago, the first freight train from China arrived in… London. Now, Mr. J. has shared an article that indicates the return trip, loaded with British goods, has been made:

First direct London-China train completes 12,000 km run

The date of this achievement, April 29, was just a few days ago. Similarly, one can also imagine similar trips from London all the way to Vladivostok (with the appropriate stop to convert cars to the wider Russian gauge). In any case, that this means is that the Eurasian land mass is already connected. The real project is to build it out, and make those connections even more redundant.

So with that in mind, consider these two articles, which many of you noticed this week:

Will we soon build a VILLAGE on the moon? China is in talks with Europe about launching a lunar settlement

There are statements in three paragraphs that caught my attention in the first article:

As with all things in this new age of space exploration, collaboration appears to be the key to making things happen.  This certainly seems to be the case when it comes to the China National Space Administration (CNSA) and the ESA’s respective plans for lunar exploration. As spokespeople from both agencies announced this week, the CNSA and the ESA hope to work together to create a “Moon Village” by the 2020s.

…

Yulong and Hvistendahl indicated that this base would aid in the development of lunar mining, space tourism, and facilitate missions deeper into space – particularly to Mars. It would also build upon recent accomplishments by both agencies, which have successfully deployed robotic orbiters and landers to the Moon in the past few decades. These include the CNSA’s Chang’e missions, as well as the ESA’s SMART-1 mission.

As part of the Chang’e program, the Chinese landers explored the lunar surface in part to investigate the prospect of mining Helium-3, which could be used to power fusion reactors here on Earth….

And lest we forget, China and Europe are exploring the use of 3D Printing in their extraterrestrial human colony schemes:

In addition, its is likely that the construction of this base will rely on additive manufacture (aka. 3-d printing) techniques specially developed for the lunar environment. In 2013, the ESA announced that they had teamed up with renowned architects Foster+Partners to test the feasibility of using lunar soil to print walls that would protect lunar domes from harmful radiation and micrometeorites.

If one looks closely at these proposals, they are nothing less than the extension of the New Silk Road project concepts to space itself. And in this respect, it’s interesting the Chinese and Europeans are discussing concepts, plans, and possibilities directly with each other.

This, I submit, is another geopolitical earthquake, and it presages yet another eventuality: if Europe opts to go with China in these developments, inevitably, this will mean an economic, geopolitical, and military break with NATO and the USA. Why? Well, other than the obvious reasons, there are the not-so-obvious reasons. I and others have repeatedly said, and warned, that where there is space commercialization, there will inevitably space militarization and weaponization; one has to protect all those very expensively developed space assets from potential competitors and interdiction. China has already demonstrated a sophisticated anti-satellite capability; Russia probably has an equal if not more sophisticated capability, but they’re being typically secretive about it. Europe most likely has developed similar technologies. In any case, the point is, that rest assured the Chinese and Europeans are talking about Moon tourism, mining, permanent human colonies there, the use of 3d printing to construct such habitats.

But one can also be absolutely certain that, behind closed doors, and at very high levels, the Chinese and Europeans also have been discussing those other issues…

See you on the flip side…

Read More At: GizaDeathStar.com
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About Dr. Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and “strange stuff”. His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into “alternative history and science”.

Here’s One For The 3-D Printing Scrapbook

Source: GizaDeathStar.com
Dr. Joseph P. Farrell Ph.D.
March 11, 2017

It has been a while since I’ve updated the 3d-printing scrapbook on this site, but not for want of stories about it. In fact, as we will discover this week, there is big news on this front, beginning with today’s story, which several readers here noticed and shared. Now, you may be wondering why I’ve put this story under the category of the “transhumanist scrapbook,” but we’ll get to that in a moment, for it has to do with today’s high octane speculation. 3-d printed structures have already been built in China, so what’s the fuss here? Here’s one version of this story that appeared at Zero Hedge:

This House Was 3D-Printed In Under 24 Hours At A Cost Of Just $10,000

OK… the “house” is not exactly a nice looking modern American middle class brick home with faux Tudor turrets and windows, but then again, those homes now cost as much as three-or-four modern overpriced automobiles that can be remote controlled and sent into trees if you or your family step out of line.   Ahhh… progress!

This cozy little place was only a little over $10,000, and that means, considerably less money than a new car, and unlike other structures made from “additive manufacturing,” this one was not printed elsewhere and assembled on the spot, but printed right on the spot.  With a little extra money, I’m sure a basement could have been dug out and a basement printed as well for those requiring shelter during tornado season in Russia (remember,  they get them too).

But just allow your mind to wander a bit, and speculate on all the implications: suppose they perfect all this and can print your modern American middle class brick home with faux Tudor turrets and windows… at a fraction of the cost (that is to say, for the price of just one – not several – of the modern over-priced automobiles that can be remote controlled and sent into trees if you or your family step out of line). What’s brought down the cost? Once again, it’s labor productivity that has been drastically reduced.  Now let your imagination really go: imagine printing roads with the process. Indeed, why have humans driving the equipment that digs the roadbeds at all? This can be done with automatically controlled vehicles. Another robot printer can print the frames for the concrete pouring, and another can then pour the concrete. Few, or no, humans needed. Cost of making or even repairing and maintaining the road? Drastically reduced. Why? Labor productivity has once again declined, dramatically.

Speculate further: if it is simple houses today, why not high-rises? As the article states, apartment buildings have already been constructed in China using parts printed by 3-d printing. But now imagine doing it on the spot – as with this little house – and today’s erection cranes give way to tomorrow’s 3-d printing modules, and high rises could conceivably go up not in a matter of weeks, but possibly just days. And again, at a fraction of the cost. Why? Once again, because of the decline of the costs of labor productivity.

And of course, there is the application of the same technology for space purposes; already NASA and other space agencies are looking at the process not only for printing spare parts in space for simple repairs, but looking much farther ahead to the possibilities of using the process to construct permanent human habitation and working spaces off-world. And the black projects world has a wonderful new technology to play with in their underground bases and tunnels, a boon not only to the elimination of labor productivity and maintenance costs, but, as human labor production requirements fall, so do the security risks as fewer people are “in the know.” As I’ve stated before, I strongly suspect that additive manufacturing comes out of the black world, since the process has been around for a long time(decades, if one really digs into it), and it probably much more advanced in that black projects world than is evident in the public one. (And here’s a thought to ponder, why in the past few years has 3-d printing been being “driven” into the public consciousness by stories such as these?)

So why belabor all of this? Because again traditional economic models of analysis will have to be drastically revised. Typically, housing is one area that has been looked at as an indicator of the economy’s health and the employment market. When houses are built, people are spending, and people are employed building them. But with the progress and advances in the additive manufacturing process and the low cost of building a house manufactured on the spot, more people who cannot now build or afford a home will be able to do so. Thus, a housing market can expand, without the hitherto typical expansion of employment. Hence, for those making such models and emphasizing the need to shift back to a production economy, a problem is posed: how does one increase production when labor productivity is falling due to technological progress? What does one do with the decrease of jobs once filled by humans?

As I’ve argued before, there must be a dramatic increase in human productivity.

See you on the flip side…

Read More At: GizaDeathStar.com
________________________________________________

About Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and “strange stuff”. His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into “alternative history and science”.

Robots With Human Skin…And Oh, Look, A 3-D Printer That Can Do…

Source: GizaDeathStar.com
Dr. Joseph P. Farrell Ph.D.
March 12, 2017

Yesterday, you’ll recall, I blogged about a little house that was built in Russia, on the spot, using 3-d printing or “additive manufacturing,” for a little over $10,000. And in recent years we’ve also occasionally covered stories about the use of the technology to print various biological components: organs and so on.

Well, many readers of this website noticed a significant story that was reported just this past January, of the latest application of the technology to “print” human organs, in this case, skin:

Spanish scientists create 3D bioprinter which can print functional human skin

Now, there’s a disturbing passage here:

It may be the biggest human organ, but it’s about to become a lot less finite.

That’s because scientists in Spain have developed a prototype for a 3D bioprinter that is capable of producing totally functional human skin.

The skin can be used for research purposes, testing cosmetics and other chemical-based products, and for transplanting onto human patients.

“(It) can be transplanted to patients or used in business settings to test chemical products, cosmetics or pharmaceutical products in quantities and with timetables and prices that are compatible with these uses,” said José Luis Jorcano, one of the researchers behind the project. (Emphasis added)

Note the now-familiar tactic whenever such technologies are being advanced and “sold” to the public, the good old  “think of the health benefits” argument. Well, true enough, such skin would be a convenient test bed for testing pharmaceutical products and cosmetics, and this is sure to have the animal rights’ advocacy community’s attention, for currently, as is well known, animals are use as test subjects for cosmetic products and so on, and as a result, suffer. Getting rid of that would be good. However, it does not take a great leap of the imagination nor much “high octane speculation” to realize that such printed organs could also be convenient test beds for other purposes, such as the testing of skin-absorbed bio-weapons, and so on.

However, my real concern today is the connection between this story and the following story that many people also shared:

Get ready for robots with human flesh

And in case you missed that important paragraph, here it is:

Two University of Oxford biomedical researchers are calling for robots to be built with real human tissue, and they say the technology is there if we only choose to develop it. Writing in Science Robotics, Pierre-Alexis Mouthuy and Andrew Carr argue that humanoid robots could be the exact tool we need to create muscle and tendon grafts that actually work.(Italicized emphasis added).

Now ponder that statement in connection with the first article, for if it is now possible to 3-d print human skin, then the possibility of 3-d printing specific human musculature is not far behind, and with that, the “human looking robot.” Forget about the humanoid robots of I, Robot of Isaac Asimov’s celebrated sci-fi classic or the movie with Will Smith, or C3PO of the Star Wars series with its definitely mechanical robots and “droids”. In effect, the robots would increasingly look human, more like the “androids” of the Alien series of movies.

And since we were talking yesterday about the decline of labor productivity, why even bother hiring expensive actors (like Will Smith) at all, when one could design a robot with a certain “look”? Why hire expensive performers for a rock band or symphony orchestra when one could simply create a whole orchestra of robots, which, incidentally, wouldn’t make “mistakes”?

Asimov foresaw it all in I, Robot, and one can only hope that the same people who are pushing the “androidization” of human society will also be giving some thought to the three fundamental rules of robotics that Asimov also wrote about.

And it’s worth mentioning that things didn’t go so smoothly, in spite of the best of intentions and the three rules of robotics, in Asimov’s “fiction,” which, unfortunately, looks more like it is becoming science fact.

See you on the flip side…

Read More At: GizaDeathStar.com
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About Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and “strange stuff”. His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into “alternative history and science”.

Project RAMA: Turning Asteroids Into Spaceships

Source: GizaDeathStar.com
Dr. Joseph P. Farrell
June 24, 2016

I couldn’t resist this story, even though this week has been largely taken up with geopolitical news. It was shared by Ms. M.W. and it’s an example of the ssort of dreaming that is now taking place for the commercialization of space:

Plan to Turn Asteroids Into Spaceships Could Spur Off-Earth Mining

Note first of all that this is a serious plan being funded by a NASA grant:

A few decades from now, asteroids may be flying themselves to mining outposts in space, nobly sacrificing their abundant resources to help open the final frontier to humanity.

That’s the vision of California-based company Made In Space, which was recently awarded NASA funding to investigate how to turn asteroids into giant, autonomous spacecraft.

The project, known as RAMA (Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata), is part of Made In Space’s long-term plan to enable space colonization by helping make off-Earth manufacturing efficient and economically viable. [How Asteroid Mining Could Work (Infographic)]

Arthur C. Clark fans will at least appreciate the reference to his RAMA series of science fiction novels. But now note what the project supposedly involves:

Continue Reading At: GizaDeathStar.com

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Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and “strange stuff”. His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into “alternative history and science”.

Three D Printing Scrapbook – Asteroid Mining

Source:GizaDeathStar.com
Dr. Joseph P. Farrell
January 12, 2016

This article caught my eye, as it did a number of you as well, and I suspect it may have caught yours for reasons similar to why it did mine. It’s straightforward enough, and in an era when we’ve come to expect a “slow drip and dribble” of information concerning new technologies, new space ventures, new commercial ventures and even new types of financial systems, it’s not all that exciting. It’s what is not being said in it that I find intriguing, and it’s that “hidden not-being-said” component that forms the kernel of today’s high octane speculations:

Asteroid-Mining Company 3D-Prints Object from Space Rock Metals

The story is simple enough:

Planetary Resources, which aims to extract water and other useful materials from asteroids, has 3D-printed an object using metal powder gleaned from a space rock.

“It is the first part ever 3D-printed with material from outer space and is reminiscent of a design that could originate from a 3D printer in the zero-gravity environment of space,” Planetary Resources representatives wrote in a blog post Thursday (Jan. 7) about the object, which is about 1 inch (2.5 centimeters) tall by 3.4 inches (8.7 cm) wide and weighs 8.8 ounces (250 grams). [10 Ways 3D-Printing May Transform Space Travel]

“The asteroid (or meteorite) used for the print materials was sourced from the Campo Del Cielo impact near Argentina, and is composed of iron, nickel and cobalt — similar materials to refinery-grade steel,” they added.

Continue Reading At: GizaDeathStar.com